In mid-December 2025, the MVPD formerly known as Cincinnati Bell suffered a blow in its retransmission consent battle against the nation’s largest owner of broadcast TV stations to the FCC. The Media Bureau disagreed with Altafiber that Nexstar Media Group engaged in “good faith” violations as they pertain to retransmission consent negotiations.
Altafiber isn’t satisfied with acting Bureau Chief Erin Boone‘s decision, and wants the three voting members of the FCC to consider its case.
With Altafiber Chief Legal Officer Mary E. Talbott and Breisach Cordell PLLC’s Washington, D.C.-based attorneys writing on the MVPD’s behalf, a formal Application for Review was submitted Friday (1/9) for the FCC’s review.
This formalizes Altafiber’s desire for a full Commission review of “certain aspects” of the Media Bureau’s decision rejecting altafiber’s retransmission consent complaint
against Nexstar.
As RBR+TVBR previously reported, the matter is linked to altafiber’s ability to provide the Nexstar-owned NBC affiliate in the Dayton-Springfield market, WDTN-2, to subscribers. In early 2017, WDTN became a Nexstar property via a merger with Media General. Previous owners of the station include LIN TV, and in earlier years AVCO and Crosley. With negotiations anew in early April 2025, altafiber claimed that the discussions involving carriage of WDTN included a clause that NewsNation be carried by the cable TV services provider as well. That allegation proved to be the catalyst in blocking both WDTN and NewsNation, by law, to subscribers in the absence of a fresh carriage agreement, as a 2022 accord had expired.
There was also a claim by altafiber that it wanted contractually obligated language in a new deal resulting in increased retransmission consent fees should Nexstar convert a shared services agreement in Dayton into a owned-and-operated facility or add a station in the Cincinnati market. In the Gem City, WBDT-TV is an affiliate of The CW, the network controlled by Nexstar. It is owned by Vaughn Media, and operated via an LMA by Nexstar.
In Cincinnati, Nexstar does not presently own or operate any stations, with Hearst Television, Gray Media and Sinclair the main ownership groups in the market. That said, a forthcoming asset swap could change the regional dynamic for Nexstar, which owns stations in Columbus, Ohio, and Lexington, Ky.
Expressing its grounds for Commission review, Altafiber says they exist “because the Bureau made determinations in conflict with existing Commission precedent, made erroneous findings with respect to material facts and created a material new policy that had not previously been resolved by the Commission.”
In the AFR, Altafiber states:
This case involves a retransmission consent demand by a broadcaster that, while
inconsistent with the Commission’s good faith negotiating rules, was mistakenly clothed in
presumptive validity by the Bureau and upheld. In its Good Faith Order, the Commission
established the criteria for demands deemed presumptively consistent with competitive
marketplace considerations. When evaluating such criteria, the Bureau appropriately invoked the last antecedent rule, a rule to aid in linguistic interpretation, but misapplied it resulting in an erroneous finding that presumptive validity applied. In addition to improperly applying the rule, the Bureau’s application directly conflicted with Commission precedent.
Furthermore, Altafiber claims, “The Bureau sidestepped consideration by incorrectly declaring altafiber’s resistance to Nexstar’s demands” as merely a “commonplace disagreement” about rates.
For Altafiber, “Nexstar’s demand was anything but ‘commonplace,’ unless the Bureau
considers imposing an incremental cost of more than $50 per Dayton subscriber ‘commonplace.’”
The MVPD then assails Nexstar for this cost in addition to any retransmission consent fee as it pertains to subscribers in the Cincinnati DMA, not Dayton, for “delivery of Nexstar’s unpopular news channel, NewsNation.”
Altafiber continues, “The cost is so high because 99% of altafiber’s subscribers are in the Cincinnati DMA where Nexstar owns no broadcast stations. Evaluating whether the demands of broadcasters are consistent with competitive marketplace considerations must necessarily be made in the market for which retransmission consent is being negotiated. Thus, these costs must be measured relative to the 1% of altafiber’s subscribers who would be able to receive the Dayton station.”
As such, Altafiber contends, “The Bureau had a duty to consider altafiber’s rebuttal evidence.”
In suggesting Boone concocted a new policy, Altafiber says the Media Bureau declared that “a broadcaster’s economic self-interest may take precedent over its duty to serve the public interest. Even more significantly, it declared that the Commission lacked authority to enforce the public interest obligation in the context of retransmission consent negotiations, instead effectively delegating to altafiber the obligation to enforce Nexstar’s public interest obligations through the negotiating process.”
As such, Altafiber concludes, “The Bureau’s decision creates a dangerous and clear precedent that all broadcaster demands are presumptively consistent with competitive marketplace considerations, therefore no limits apply to the scale and scope of those demands. Even if the demands violate the broadcaster’s public interest obligations, in light of the Bureau’s policy declaration, the Commission is now powerless to enforce those obligations. The Bureau’s decision permits broadcasters to withhold their signals until their demands are met without fear of any enforcement action. Whether the signal remains blacked out or the MVPD capitulates and access becomes unaffordable, foreclosed access harms many consumers who rely on MVPDs to receive local broadcast television.”
Thus, Altafiber asks FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and Commissioners Olivia Trusty and Anna Gómez to remand “Count I” of the complaint to the Media Bureau with instructions that Nexstar’s demand for carriage of an affiliated cable programming service outside of the DMA for which fully retransmission consent is sought is not presumptively consistent with
competitive marketplace considerations; and that Nexstar had the burden to establish
that its demands were consistent with competitive marketplace considerations.
Additionally, the FCC vote-makers are being asked to review and rescind the Bureau’s policy determination that a broadcaster can subordinate its obligation to serve the public interest to pursuit of “advanc[ing] its own economic self-interest when negotiating retransmission consent” and if it does, the Commission lacks authority to enforce the public interest obligations.”
